Beamish Storm Rider

Christian Beamish is a Californian surfer, surfboard shaper, writer, and craftsman deeply rooted in the coastline culture of the West Coast. He grew up in Southern California, surfed from a young age, and honed both his surf-style and his tools of expression through many years of experience. He served in the U.S. Navy after high school, which exposed him to remote places, resourcefulness, and practical skills like welding and working with his hands — all of which would later feed into his shaping and boat-building. After discharge he traveled and surfed extensively (Philippines, Indonesia, Western Australia, New Zealand, etc.), then went to college (Santa Cruz) to study creative writing. In Santa Cruz he began shaping surfboards more seriously, influenced by classic designs from the late 1970s and early ’80s (single fins, twin fins, channel bottoms, etc.). He also built a boat (“Cormorant”) by hand — an 18-foot Shetland Isle beach boat — which he sailed down Baja California, an adventure that he later chronicled in his book Voyage of the Cormorant. Today he operates Surfboards California, shaping a wide range of boards (gliders, guns, old-school twins, etc.), deeply inspired by the surf history of California and Hawaii, blending past and present in his designs.